Wednesday, May 23, 2007

The time has come to talk of many things....

Quick link to the cookery section over at Project Gutenberg. Fine people, and a great idea. Some oddities, odds and ends, and plainly weird and wonderful texts available for free download. (The Australian Project has a separate, less comprehensive, but annotated page here. With pics.)

Highlights include Mrs Beeton's "Book of Household Management",and The Presbyterian Ladies' Aid "Recipes Tried and True".

Theres also a history of crisco. But my sense of decency won't let me link to it. Mother of jabbering buddha.

Here is a list of online medieval cookbooks, in English, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese........

I particularly liked ANEVV Booke of Cookerie, by Thomas Gloning, 1615.

To sowce a Pigge.
SCald a large Pigge, cut off his headand slit him in the
middest, and takeout his bones, and wash him in two orthree warme waters. Then
collar himvp like Brawne, and sowe the collarsin a fayre cloth. Then boyle them
verytender in faire water, then take themvp and throw them in fayre water
andSalt vntill they be colde, for that willmake the skinne white. Then tace
apottle of the same water, that the Piggewas boyled in, and a pottle of
whiteWine, a race of Ginger sliced, a coupleof Nutmegs quartered, a spoonefull
of<>whole Pepper, fiue or sixe Bayleaues:seeth all this
together, when it is coldeput your Pigge into the sowce-drincke,so you may keepe
it halfe a yeere, butspend the head.



Class stuff, and a terrifyingly expensive recipe for the time. Can't wait to start scalding that whole pig. Beats my home cured bacon into a cocked hat.

2 comments:

Laura said...

God that brings me back. I took Old English and Middle English in college, though it was more about what the "biscop" decreed than how to cook a "pigge"!

P.S. "Of shoes and ships and sealing wax. Of cabbages and kings"!!

Abulafia said...

Gotta dig out some recipes and try them. Something to do with spitroasting an entire something or other, or using a pit oven.

An authentic taste of Chaucer.

Or something to do with oysters, maybe.